Latest from HLS News Staff

Andrew McLaughlin ’94 has been named deputy chief technology officer for the Obama Administration. Most recently, McLaughlin served as head of global public policy for Google.

Justin Raphael ’09 and Andrew Furlow ’09 both had gained litigation experience during their summer law firm work. But sitting in the U.S. Supreme Court on March 30, watching constitutional scholar Samuel Issacharoff present an oral argument they’d helped research and prepare, they gained an entirely new appreciation of the process.

The following op-ed, co-written by Harvard Law School Professors Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84 and Jesse Fried ’92, entitled “Equity Compensation for Long-Term Results,” was published in the June 16, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal.

The Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, which is directed by Harvard Law School Professor Hal Scott, has released a comprehensive report detailing recommendations to reform the U.S. financial regulatory structure. The report is entitled, “The Global Financial Crisis: A Plan for Regulatory Reform.”

William Burke-White ’02, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, has accepted a two-year assignment in the Office of Foreign Policy Planning, an internal think tank at the State Department. He will focus on long-range policy issues concerning Russia and international law.

Support for International Adoption principles is growing, says HLS Professor Elizabeth Bartholet, citing endorsements for Policy Statement and the recent Malawi ruling in the Madonna case.

The following op-ed, by Harvard Law School Professor Mark Roe ’75, “The Chrysler Bankruptcy Sale: An Assessment,” appeared in the June 15, 2009 edition of Forbes.

The following op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Noah Feldman, “When arrogance takes the bench,” was published in the June 11, 2009 edition of the New York Times.

This weekend, leaders from the United States and China will gather in Cambridge to examine challenges facing the financial sectors of the two countries. The annual “Symposium on Building the Financial System of the 21st Century: An Agenda for China and the United States” is organized by Harvard Law School’s Program on International Financial Systems (PIFS) and the China Development Research Foundation (CDRF).

David Kennedy ’80, a renowned expert in international law, returned to Harvard Law School as a full-time professor in the fall of 2009. Kennedy was on the HLS full-time faculty for more than three decades until he became vice president for International Affairs at Brown University in 2008.

Two HLS alumni have been appointed to positions in the Department of Commerce’s Office of General Counsel.  Nicole Lamb-Hale ’91 joins the Commerce Department as deputy general counsel and Quentin Palfrey ’02 as associate general counsel.

In an April 29 lecture, Harvard Law School Professor Robert H. Sitkoff discussed the causes and consequences of revolutionary changes in American trust law. The talk, entitled “Lawyers, Banks, and Money: The Quiet Revolution in American Trust Law,” was part of an event honoring Sitkoff on his appointment as the John L. Gray Professor of Law. (Watch a webcast of the event.)

HLS Professor Elizabeth Warren testified at the hearing entitled, “TARP Accountability and Oversight: Measuring the Strength of Financial Institutions” on Tuesday June 9, 2009. 

Jesse Fried ’92, a leading expert in executive compensation, corporate governance, corporate bankruptcy, and venture capital, will join the Harvard Law School faculty in the fall. He is currently a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley.

In a recent podcast for the American Bankruptcy Institute, HLS Professor Mark Roe ’75 along with Professor David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Professor Todd Zywicki of the George Mason University School of Law give their thoughts on the manner in which the federal government has inserted itself into the Chapter 11 process in recent automaker bankruptcies. The experts touch on such topics as whether the government has the power to pick the winners and losers among the stakeholders in bankruptcy cases, if the process engineered for Chrysler is a violation of the code’s absolute priority rule and what the future effects are on lenders who now must weigh new potential risks of their investments.

HLS Professor Reinier Kraakman co-wrote the following op-ed, “The Directors Guild,” with Ronald J. Gilson, a professor of law and business at Stanford and Columbia. The piece— on the government’s role in selecting corporate directors as a result of its growing investments in private industry—appeared in the June 7, 2009, issue of the New York Times.

William A. Gunn ’86, a retired Air Force colonel, has been sworn in as general counsel of the Department of Veterans Affairs.  He was recently confirmed by the Senate.  Prior to his confirmation, he had a private practice in northern Virginia representing military members and veterans.

On June 3, General David Petraeus, the current Commander of U.S. Central Command, was on hand for the re-commissioning ceremony of two military officers who were being promoted to the rank of Captain—one in the Army and the other in the Air Force. Kyle Scherer ’09 and Nicholas Siler took their oaths in the Caspersen Room of Langdell Library.